I liked it, for the most part. I liked the feeling of being with him, even in my thoughts, and then releasing myself from the overwhelming need I seemed to have for him already. In that aspect, I seemed to have some control over the situation, over myself, and most importantly, over what he was doing to me.
The flip side of that coin was that I had lost a certain element of control. Recklessly falling for him came to mind. I had wildly given him a part of myself, and I was enjoying the fearlessness of the loss of that part of myself. I had tasted the same fate after our night in the snow, but I had never fully taken a drink from the cup.
I liked how insane the love I felt made me feel. The back and forth. The uncertainty. The conviction.
I liked how the secret—the connection—I kept was no longer just mine alone to bear. He completed the other half to the whole.
Leaning my face against my palm, I silently tapped my pencil against the desk. I kept my eyes forward, not wanting Mr. Peoples, my English teacher, to call on me for any reason. He babbled, and I couldn’t help but translate his words into French as he lectured the class; it was a common habit of mine.
Sometimes the words sounded better in another language, and I allowed his words to flow in French, a lull in my mind rocking me into a space filled with nothing but Brando Fausti.
After he had told me his version of the story of our meeting in the snow, I had yawned, my eyes closing, my mind shutting down. His words had brought peace, and I settled into the feeling, into him, like protective armor against the sharpness of the world.
Much later, I had come awake with my head against his chest, my body cradled in his arms, while he sat in the same chair he had occupied during the night, sleeping. Besides the fire, we had nothing else to keep us warm. I didn’t seem to need it. His body temperature ran hot enough that I never felt chilled.
Just a hint of light had peeked through the sky, covering the abandoned house in a hazy glow. Fog had settled onto the ground, hovering over morning dew. The same chill had clouded the windows that were not boarded up, and the world seemed distorted from my view. Water occasionally dripped down broken panes in erratic rivulets.
I could smell the abuse, the abandonment in the lungs of the old house circulating under my nose, only rivaled by the smell of the man underneath me. He still smelled like the lingering sweetness from the suckers and his cologne. There was something else, something I couldn’t place, but knew it belonged to him only. A scent that made me think of one of the safest words known to man,home.
I had tried not to move. I wanted to watch him during the predawn.
His face in the light had been even more heartbreaking than his face had been in the darkness. He was so beautiful that my heart and body ached from his perfection. But the catch was that he wasn’t perfect—there was something rugged about him, something wild and unforgiving.
What he did to Carlos? That was forgiving compared to what hecoulddo. I had felt it, the rage that he kept locked up.
The straight in me seemed to be mesmerized by the jagged in him.
His lashes had fluttered then, long and dark against his cheeks. His wide mouth turned up in a sleepy grin. His eyes slowly opened to meet mine. In the light, they were still brown, but lighter in the sun.
The black ring around his irises gave his eyes a three-dimensional look, making them almost shocking. No doubt stunning. Looking into his eyes was like looking into a lethal beast’s soul—the risk worth the uncertainty, the surrender and sacrifice. It was nothing he had done, action wise, to give me this impression. Not yet. This peculiar sense of mine when it came to him ran deep. What I saw in his eyes backed up what hummed in my blood. Danger and intensity and calculated rage. All of these things drew me to my opposite. This dangerous creature had hypnotized the innocence in me. The potential to become a raging beast lurked in the depths, though he kept it under lock and key, secure enough. For now.
It didn’t scare me. It intrigued me.
“Hey,” he had whispered, his voice going so low that I shivered.
“Hey.” My voice sounded shattered, almost timid.
He looked past me, at no place in particular. “You’re going to be late for school.”
“What makes you think I’m going to school?”
His eyes found mine again, serious, solid. All traces of his softer demeanor gone. “You have to.”
For some reason, I could only nod, a numbness settling over my bones at the thought of him leaving me behind. I knew he was safe, and would be, but the uncertainty of when I would see him again stung the only part of myself that I could feel at the moment—my heart.
We sat that way for a while, listening to the world while it woke from sleep, neither of us moving. The moment felt delicate, close to shattering at a moment’s breath.
I looked down at my hands, too afraid that my expression would give me away. This truth of mine felt vulnerable, as delicate as the moment. All of the truthfulness from the night before became timid, hiding in the shadows that slowly melted in the sun’s autumn light.
In that shattering breath, he moved me gently, placing me on my feet. “Mitch doesn’t live far from here.” He ran a hand through his hair, which had become wild in sleep, and then down his face. “He can bring you to Violet’s and then take you both to school.”
I shook my head, running a hand down my dress, straightening it. The dirt stains felt unreal, almost as if the night before had been a dream. As if the night had happened to someone else.
“No, Violet can take me.” I wanted him to argue, to insist. I wanted to feel from him what I had felt the night before—acceptance—and I wanted to see the reflection of my feelings in his eyes.
I had loved him ever since that night in the snow. But with space between our bodies, I felt rejected, small.Too youngfor this man.
He stood, but his eyes never left me. I could feel the weight of them. A thickness grew between us, a silence that seemed hard to penetrate.
